It is interesting reading about societal norms, yes I do believe that people find it harder to accept a slow degenerative death. Maybe this is because the developments in modern medicine are raising peoples expectations so the feeling of failure and dissappointment are so much stronger when nothing else can be done.
Having worked in a country where it was expected that every mother would lose at least one child, and women had 1 in 9 chances of dying during, or soon after childbirth, it was very interesting to see the way expectations are shifted. I was the one distressed, the women were the ones comforting me. 'It was Gods wish' they would often say. And then it was acceptable to them, no matter what age or how much pain was suffered. I couldn't agree with this and it challenged me to look at the way we grow up with such expectations. It was like comparing the two extremes. Here we have all that Sam and Sara discussed- individualism, autonomy and responsibility, and in one of the poorest Muslim countries in the world, these are so far from even being considered during the dying process. The suffering is seen as unavoidable, death without any medical input is commonplace and mourning is not seen (emotions are discrete).
